I think to say that on a general level, the “Defund the Police” movement has been a miserable failure, even in some of the bluer parts of the country. But there are still places where its staunchest defenders in public office have gotten their wishes … only to see the defunding backfire in violent, deadly fashion.
Such apparently has been the case in San Francisco, where in December 2021 we were seeing Mayor London Breed go from denigrating the police and calling for funds to be reallocated to other departments to calling for emergency funding to fight the rise in smash and grab crime sprees.
And now it would seem that another woke Democrat “leader” in San Francisco has also been mugged by reality, although it’s pretty clear from the video clip below that she doesn’t see it that way.
Hillary Ronen is a San Francisco Supervisor who represents the Mission district, which is among several areas in the city that have seen a sharp rise in violent crime. In fact, on St. Patrick’s Day, a CNN crew that was visiting the city to interview frustrated voters and business owners on the crime issue were robbed multiple times in broad daylight.
During a budget meeting last Wednesday, Ronen – who three years ago openly voiced support for defunding the police – pleaded for help from law enforcement for her district, claiming she felt “betrayed” by the police department because they kept telling her they didn’t have the resources to send any more officers.
She also criticized the priorities of the city as well as the mayor, even though it was Ronen who explicitly called for yanking funding from SFPD and putting it towards “mental health care crisis teams”:
“I’ve been begging this department to give the Mission what it deserves in terms of police presence all year long,” Ronen said. “And I have been told time and time and time and time again there are no officers that we can send to Mission.”
“It hurts. And I feel betrayed by the department. I feel betrayed by the mayor. I feel betrayed by the priorities of the city,” the Democratic politician added.
Watch:
Contrast that with what Ronen said in a Twitter thread in the summer of 2020 during the height of the Antifa/BLM-led “Defund the Police” riots:
“I want to make it clear that I believe strongly in defunding the police and reducing the number of officers on our force. For decades we’ve had an imbalance in our city’s budget, with hundreds of millions of dollars going to SFPD to have them do work they are not qualified to do.
After fighting to create Mental Health SF which redirects funds to mental health care crisis teams instead of police, I believe without a shadow of a doubt that SFPD is not where we should be putting our money.
But we have a big fight on our hands to make these cuts happen.
The Mayor has submitted her proposed budget to the Board already, and unfortunately, this level of cuts has not been included.
In my role on the Budget & Appropriations Committee, I want you to know I will be fighting for three things.
1. Significant cuts to SFPD’s budget that will meaningfully start off a multi-year process to defund and reimagine policing in San Francisco.
2. A reduction in the number of officers and command staff.
3. Fully funding the departments that are actually doing the work of keeping our streets safe, iIncluding full funding for street crisis response through Mental Health SF.
But I can’t do this alone. I only have one vote. If you agree with me that we need to defund the police and instead fund services, I need your support now. I’m asking everyone to join me to get these cuts passed in the Budget Committee.”
This is a classic case of better be careful of what you wish for. Ronen fought hard to defund the police and it happened in part from her efforts. The results have been disastrous. Not only that, but the police officers who do decide to stick around often feel demoralized by this type of insane rhetoric, and justifiably so.
It’s one thing to constructively criticize police departments and work with them to come up with solutions but it’s another thing to lump in the few bad apples with all the good ones who put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve their local communities. After a while the denigration and lack of support gets to them, because they’re human, too.
I’d like to think Ronen has learned a tough lesson in all this, but I doubt it, because if there’s one thing we know beyond a shadow of a doubt about Democrats its that owning up to their mistakes is just not a thing they’re willing to do. And sadly, their constituents are the ones who end up paying the price.
